Late 19th century silver-plated metal tastevin, bowl walls decorated on one side with dense gadroons, close and oblique to each other and on the other with five large pearls, back centered by a medal engraved with an erotic scene, in the exergue inscribed "SUR LE TOTT ENCULER CHAT 3. ORFEVRES A LA SAINT-ELOI." from the French Chanson Paillardes "Les trois orfèvres" within a domed theory, ring grip with perpendicular oval finger rest. Bacchus the god of grapes and wine is often associated, even in antiquity with Eros the lynchpin god of passions and drives. Pierre de Bourdeille BRANTOME in Les vies des dames galantes, tells us that Henry III of France had a cup made with an erotic depiction with figures taken from the lustful sonnets of Aretino (c. 1526. ), and that during banquets and dinners it was the normal thing for cups and tableware to somehow accompany and emphasize the hedonistic moment of drinking and letting loose, "Nous avons idée, qu'au cours de ces repas, in ne devait pas s'ennuyer, surtout si ces dames <> 'amusajent a imiter les attitudes des personagges galants enserrant leur verre! >> Pierre Andrieu in "Petite histoire de la cristallerie et ed l'orfevrerie bacchique" pp. 30-31. Mazenot himself in his cardinal volume on tastevins was able to study eight pieces decorated with an erotic scene, from the late 19th-early 20th century, and four of these were in the antiquated form, and he speculated on the possibility, perhaps romanticized, that they had been created from an antique cast, of the molds that circulated in the backrooms of goldsmiths, elaborated, engraved and stamped in the wake of the one made for the King of France.
Weight: 101 g, height: 28 mm, diameter: 81 mm